all my bells are ringing just for you
by recycled-stars
Summary: Castle and Beckett work on making new traditions.  Castle thinks clothing should mostly be optional.


**Author's Notes: **This was written for zinke for castle100's holiday drabble exchange over at Livejournal. I think wording of the prompt was something like: Castle/Beckett, any rating, wrapping presents, do with it what you will *g*.

So naturally I interpreted that as a sly grin and wrote what probably would've turned into full blown porn were it not for the _drabble_ part of the exchange. (As it is, this is probably about seven times as long as a drabble is technically meant to be.) I'm sure your imagination can fill in the rest. In my mind, I'm thinking it involves carpet burn.

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><p><em>The pieces go missing<br>May we still feel whole  
>We'll build new traditions in place of the old<br>Cause life without revision will silence our souls_

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><p>"Castle you're meant to be <em>helping<em>."

"I am."

"Helping me out of my _shirt _doesn't count."

She can tell he's pouting before she turns around. It's nearly audible. Beckett narrows her eyes. "That face won't work. Here. _Wrap_."

"Remind me how you, and by extension me, got roped into this again?"

"Ryan employed a much more convincing puppy dog look than yours, and mentioned charity, the holidays and underprivileged children in the same sentence. What was I meant to say? No, I have no soul? I hate children and Christmas?"

"Do you?"

"Hate is a strong word."

"Mildly dislike?"

"There are definitely downsides to both."

"Secretly enjoy quite a lot?"

"Perhaps."

She hasn't bothered to readjust her shirt, so he reaches out and wiggles his fingers against the bare skin of her waist where it falls open to distract her from the sting of it. "You miss your mother." He can't see her face, she's busy plucking tape from his unengaged fingers, but he hears the hitch of her breath.

"I guess. I miss … my family, traditions. It can't ever really be the same after something like that."

"No," he agrees. "But different can still be good. I invited your father to the Castle family Christmas by the way, so now you have no excuse."

"You invited my father to your family Christmas?" She twists to look at him, expression cryptic.

"Our family."

She blinks and he sighs it out, "I know what you're thinking."

"What am I thinking?"

"You're running scared at the use of collective pronouns."

"Does it look like I'm running?"

"Your eyes. Your eyes are running."

"_Castle_." She bites into her lip, exasperated.

"This is how it _works _Kate. We make new traditions."

_Together_. He doesn't say it, but she hears it.

"Like my father and your family, Christmas day?" she asks.

"Yeah." He bends, kisses her, tape twisting and sticking into unusable knots as he brings his hand up to brush against her cheek. "Like that."

"You have anything else in mind?" She's smirking a little, and it's suggestive.

"Mmm, well, as you can see, I've already started to unwrap you."

She turns and clambers to her knees between his legs, pushes him back against the carpet, crawls forward until she's sinking over his body. "So you have."

He reaches out and presses one of the pre-made bows to the space between her breasts. The adhesive clings, just barely, to her bra.

"There," he says. "Perfect gift."

Beckett presses her lips together, trying to hide a smile. "Does this mean that the hours I spent trying to come up with something to buy you were wasted?"

He shrugs, deadpans a line he knows is cheesy. "All I want is you." Castle's hand tugs her closer, but he doesn't kiss her, just huffs in her ear while his fingers creep along her spine in a dance that the rest of her answers, sparking, electricity and fire. "And I really, really want you."

"I shouldn't let you," she whispers back, throaty, her tongue darting out to taste where his jaw meets his body. "You're not meant to open your presents early."

"Clearly we're going to have to talk about traditions more." He begins the important task of divesting her of the rest of her clothes with focussed precision. The bra and the bow fall away and he hums into her chest for a moment, curling forward to suck and nip at skin. "In the Castle household we always open one gift on Christmas Eve."

"It's the 23rd," she counters, flatly, pushing him backward and sliding up his body so his mouth is still slick around her nipple.

Still, he argues, replaces his mouth with his thumbs for a moment. "24th in Australia and certain parts of Russia."

She laughs, rocks her hips against him, leans down to tell him a secret behind the curtain of her hair.  
>"And what if I don't want to make this a tradition?"<p>

He rolls sideways until she's forced to sprawl beside him on the carpet, lets a hand map the sharp edges of her, hips and shoulder blades and elbows. "Then I'd say you're a liar."

(He'd be right. She never really wanted to say no, not to any of it.)


End file.
